COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE FLEXIBILIZATION OF SOME TAX STATUTES: THE IMPORTANCE OF EQUITY JUDGMENTS IN CASES OF PUBLIC CALAMITY

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the possibility of making some tax statutes more flexible during periods of public calamity that are declared by a Government decree. Thus, in face of the Covid-19 global pandemic, there is the urgent need to adopt tax measures that may not only safeguard economic activity by corporations and the maintenance of jobs, but also allow the persistence of the taxpayer’s ability to pay taxes. Such measures aim to reduce economic/financial impacts on businesses and to help the whole society in a near and unpredictable future. However, despite the urgency of the legal measures al-ready adopted, the flexibilization of some additional tax rules will have to be carried out during these harsh times, and this could be justified by means of equity judgements and by using the so-called, in Brazil, “Reasonableness Postulate”. These legal techniques request that the legal professional identify which cases are effectively extreme and very serious in the context of a pandemic and therefore determine which should receive a special and last resort protection from public entities, i.e., mainly from the Judiciary.